


nachtmusik

by celesy



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, leo is a dumb alien meme, who coincidentally enjoys dumb alien memes unironically, why am i so bad at tagging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 01:35:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8351176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celesy/pseuds/celesy
Summary: But now it’s ass o’clock, and here he is. Awake. Fuck.





	

At 3:17 AM on a Tuesday night, Izumi comes to the conclusion that his ceiling is really, _really_ boring.

 

He sighs, scrubbing an arm over his eyes, and wonders why he can’t fall asleep.

 

It’s not like him to suffer from sleeplessness, excluding a certain period in the middle of second year, and it isn’t as if he’s not tired - his unit is a handful, to say the least, and his class is an absolute mess - it’s a wonder he doesn’t just collapse in a heap as soon as he gets home.

 

But now it’s ass o’clock, and here he is. Awake.

 

Fuck.

 

He’s sorting through the events of the day, trying to remember if anything out of the ordinary happened, when his phone vibrates.

 

“Who the hell is texting me at 3 AM,” he groans, rolling over, but truth be told he’s grateful for the distraction. Though he’d vastly prefer being asleep, anything is better than just lying here and waiting for death to take him.

 

He unlocks his phone, navigates to messages, and stops.

 

 **[idiot ousama]:** _one attachment_

 

He blinks a couple times, and squints at the picture, but it doesn’t change.

 

It’s… a strange creature, greenish and rubbery looking, with large beady black eyes (it’s staring at Izumi and that makes him really uncomfortable.) Its face is tilted upwards, looking weirdly philosophical, and on the bottom in swirly white text are two words - “ayy lmao”.

 

“Ayy lmao…?” he repeats to himself. Is it…a taunt? Like “hey, I am laughing at you”?

 

 **[izumi sena]:** what the fuck

 

 **[idiot ousama]:** _one attachment_

 

Izumi sighs heavily, but taps on the picture anyway. This one is a green balloon, with a squished alien face at the very top. There are some words next to its face - Izumi zooms in, already half knowing what they are.

 

Ayy lmao.

 

Izumi makes an irritated noise and saves the two pictures to his phone - he’ll look them up later. He has _so many questions,_ but he knows better than to think that Leo will easily give him the answer to even one of them, and it being the _middle of the goddamn night,_ he has no patience to pry for now.

 

He considers turning his phone off and just _not dealing with this shit_ , but he’s just as painfully awake as he was before, and he figures that the company of a crazy alien man is better than no company at all.

 

 **[izumi sena]** : why are you awake

 

 **[idiot ousama]:** Wahaha! Could ask the same of you, Sena~✩

 

He clicks his tongue. Annoying.

 

 **[izumi sena]** : can’t sleep

 

 **[idiot ousama]:** I see, I see!

 

Izumi waits for Leo to offer an explanation of his own, but the little white dots don’t appear next to his name. He frowns.

 

 **[izumi sena]:** composing?

 

 **[idiot ousama]:** The night is mysterious, isn’t it? When the sun goes down and darkness falls over the sky, mystery and inspiration runs wild!

 

 **[izumi sena]** : then why are you texting me

 

 **[idiot ousama]:** Sharp, aren’t you! Wahaha~✩

 

 **[idiot ousama]:** Sadly, my inspiration is unkind to me tonight. Ah~! What a shame~

 

 **[idiot ousama]:** Will you come over?

 

“What?” he mutters to himself. He’s used to Leo’s rapid changes of subject by now, but this question is completely off topic, not to mention ridiculous.

 

 **[izumi sena]:** the trains aren’t running anymore

 

 **[idiot ousama]** : Oh! You’re right, Sena~

 

 **[idiot ousama]** : Too bad.

 

 **[idiot ousama]** : I really want to see you.

 

Izumi makes a muffled sound of surprise and nearly throws his phone across the room. Suddenly his face feels hot, and the room too small and suffocating. He stares at the message in disbelief.

 

 _Who allowed this,_ he thinks. _Who the_ hell _allowed this stupid orange boy to text him THIS at 3:32 AM in the fucking morning._

 

His phone vibrates again and he blurts out a curse, clapping his hand over his mouth and hoping his family is too asleep to have heard him.

 

 **[idiot ousama]:** Can I call you?

 

Izumi wills his heartbeat to still and brings slightly trembling fingers up to his phone screen, grateful that this isn’t a face to face conversation and Leo can’t see how much he’s knocked him off balance.

 

 **[izumi sena]:** do what you want

 

He gets out of bed quickly, phone clutched in his hand, and makes his way over to the sliding door of the balcony. His phone begins vibrating before as he steps over the threshold, but he waits until the glass is securely in place behind him before accepting the call and bringing the phone to his ear.

 

“What,” he says curtly, careful to keep any and all hints of previous embarrassment out of his voice.

 

“Hey,” says Leo, and his voice is slightly scratchy - while that could be attributed to tiredness and lack of sleep, Izumi’s beginning to suspect that there’s something other than lack of inspiration that’s kept his stupid king up so late.

 

“Sena, are you outside?”

 

“...Yeah. How’d you know?”

 

“I wonder~ A voice from the stars told me, maybe?”

 

“A lucky guess, you mean,” he grumbles, wondering how there can be such a multitude of mystery and crypticism packed into such a small body.

 

He hears a quiet laugh through the receiver, and then the soft shuffling of socks against the floor.

 

“Maybe,” he concedes, and then Izumi hears the grating noise of Leo’s window opening, followed by the lighter noise of the screen door. Leo doesn’t have a balcony outside his window, but there’s a small outcropping of roof big enough for two or so people to sit on - something he knows from experience.

 

“Don’t fall,” he warns, already knowing that it’s unnecessary.

 

He listens as Leo settles onto the tile and makes an appreciative noise.

 

“The moon is beautiful tonight, isn’t it,” he comments.

 

As Izumi looks up, he feels the breath rush out of him. The moon is close to full, and a halo of faint white light emanates from it, illuminating the dark night sky. It’s so radiant that he wonders how it wasn’t the first thing he noticed when he stepped outside. And maybe it’s just his 3 AM tired brain, but he thinks that it’s just like Leo to help him notice the beautiful things about the world that he could have never found himself.

 

“Yeah,” he agrees quietly, and they lapse into silence for a moment, just watching.

 

“Aah! It’s no good,” Leo explodes suddenly, and Izumi’s phone nearly slips from his hand.

 

“What isn’t,” he asks, halfhearted exasperation in his voice.

 

“My inspiration isn’t coming back - aah, it’s just as i thought,” he complains. “Just hearing your voice isn’t enough.” He sighs quietly before continuing.

 

“I want to see you,” he says softly. “I really want to see you.”

 

It’s a tone of voice that Izumi rarely hears from Leo. A small voice, insignificant and broken, one that threatens to be swallowed even by the silence of the night. Izumi’s empty hand clenches into a fist, heavy at his side.

 

He wants to make him realize that he is not insignificant in any measure of words, and that it’s okay if he’s broken because god knows they both are - and maybe, just maybe, they can put each other back together again.

 

“Ousama,” he says quietly. The line is silent, but Izumi knows Leo’s heard him, so he presses on.

 

“A king needs his knights, you know - he may seem stronger than anyone else, but the truth is he can’t do everything by himself.” A night breeze blows across his face, stirring his hair slightly, and he tucks a portion of it behind his ear.

 

“You don’t have to tell me what’s wrong now,” he continues, voice dropping low. “You don’t have to tell me at all if you really don’t want to. But just remember that I’m here, alright? I’m here and I always will be. Rely on me more… okay?”

 

Izumi hears Leo let out a shuddering breath, and he braces himself against the feelings stirring in his chest. He’s not a big crier, but for some reason he feels like if he doesn’t hold back, the tears might really come.

 

“Okay,” Leo says finally, and he’s not sure if it’s just his imagination, but though his voice is barely a whisper, it sounds a little more like him.

 

“Get some sleep,” he says, turning away from the night sky and reaching for the door handle.

 

“Alright,” Leo replies, and he can hear shuffling on the other end of the line.

 

“See you tomorrow.” Izumi closes the door behind him and pulls his curtains together.

 

“Okay,” he says again, and he doesn’t know how, but he can hear the smile in Leo’s voice. “Sena?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Thank you.”

 

“That’s my line,” he returns honestly, and then taps on the red button to end the call.

 

He feels more at peace now, like something has settled down within him, and though he’ll have to wake up again in a couple hours, he figures it’s best to get some sleep.

 

He’s about to turn his phone off when a message notification drops down from the top of the screen. He shakes his head, but taps on it anyway.

 

 **[idiot ousama]:** _one attachment_

 

It’s an image of another weird green creature whose bulbous head is larger than its equally round torso, with eyes like watermelon seeds. Its arms are outstretched and it’s smiling creepily, while the stars in the background spell out the word ‘LOVE’.

 

It’s the ugliest thing he’s ever seen.

 

But he can’t stop the smile from creeping onto his face as he saves it to his phone.

**Author's Note:**

> me: trying to sleep
> 
> my brain: leo sending izumi dumb alien memes at 3 am
> 
> me, sitting up rapidly: holy fuck
> 
> i hope u enjoyed this piece of whatever this is 
> 
> it got kinda sad in the middle because my friends kept talking about izuleo angst on tweeter (join me @symchrony) and i got sad 
> 
> i want to protect them and also please izuleo event when
> 
> as always, thank you for reading! ❤︎
> 
> the pictures leo sent (i have no experience with alien memes so i apologize if these arent dank enough):  
> [first one](http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/632/652/6ca.jpg)
> 
> [second one](https://img.memecdn.com/ayylien-i-no-amused-ayy-lmao_c_3627221.jpg)
> 
> [third one](http://www.forexfactory.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1366126&stc=1&d=1392036304)


End file.
